


Don't Be A Hero

by Euregatto



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Other, Rating subject to change, this was supposed to be an Integra/Alucard story but now i'm not entirely sure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:59:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto
Summary: The situation could, in theory, be worse. Integra's headache, however...there was no fixing that.orHellsing is contracted to hunt down a Lich in Alaska, and absolutely none of it goes as planned.





	1. Act 1 Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> An AU that mostly ignores Hellsing's plot for no other reason than I wanted to do something completely different. Enjoy.  
> Disclaimer: these chapters are long as hell so I don't notice every typo. I'll be making minor edits in the future.

#  **ACT 1**

**Part 1:** Killing Someone Gives You All the Time They Had Left

   

* * *

 

   

“Is that it, then?” Integra Hellsing asked, casually lighting a fresh cigar. “You’re sending us half-way across the world with no notice and even less information to work from?”

Across the round table sat Sir Shelby Penwood. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the window panes and bracketed the silk gloves he had left splayed on the table, careless, as if bothered by a simple gust of wind. He leaned forward on his elbows, exhaling a shaky breath, and gave her an equally unsteady nod. “I would consider this meeting proper notice,” he replied, “but I was informed by the Belmont Organization with as little as I’m providing you now. Please understand…”

“I do,” she said. “However, I refuse to venture into unfamiliar territory without first sending in a reconnaissance team.”

Enrico Maxwell was seated to the right of Penwood with a disinterested expression plastered on his face. He represented the Vatican most days, mostly when in collusion with Hellsing’s services, but today he was simply an overseer. An extra set of eyes and ears and paper work. He said next to nothing once the meeting had begun, perhaps having no input of his own for once.

It was the three of them for now. The table would most certainly fill up in the coming days, potentially with members of the Round Table, and Integra’s head was already throbbing with the anticipation of long, stuffy hours in a room of dignified men.

“We have a forward scout working with the reconnaissance support sent by Mr. Belmont,” Penwood said, lifting a sheet of paper to his face. “The team has already been reporting that the town is growing quieter. It’s our upmost priority to prevent this Vampire – if a Vampire is really what we’re dealing with – from turning the population into ghouls.”

Integra peered at him from over the rim of her glasses. “Do you have reason to suspect that it _isn’t_ a Vampire?”

“Benefit of the doubt, I suppose.”

“And the scouts didn’t report back from their last shift,” Maxwell finally chimed in. His expression didn’t change, still serious and bored. Seriously bored. Integra was starting to get the feeling that he had deemed this situation as a run-of-the-mill operation that Alucard could handle without ever drawing his pistol. "Which means that with one of representatives missing, we must get thoroughly involved."

“So I’ll clear a small team,” Integra replied. “I have a Vampire in charge of my reconnaissance division. She could make a personal visit and rendezvous with Belmont's men.” She turned her gaze pointedly at Penwood. “I’m assuming I’ll have access to proper funding.”

Penwood sighed. Without waiting for his answer, Integra tapped the keys on her phone and let the call ring out on speaker. The voice on the other line picked up after a moment and they could hear the foreign lyrics of what might have been singing. One of Integra’s men answered.

_“Reconnaissance.”_

“Tell your captain to report to me at once.”

The singing on the other end paused, suspended in the air between two pulses of a heartbeat. There was a slight ruffle and, finally, an affirmative remark. Then the line disconnected.

In the following beat of silence Maxwell’s expression shifted into a grin. Integra cast her eyes to him, to Walter Dornez refilling Penwood’s cup of fine red leaf tea, and then to Maxwell’s escort, seated in a chair by the doorway. She was eyeing the bodies in the room wearily. It always seemed like tensions were buzzing like bees, not yet enough to create friction but quite explosive and deadly when pushed to anger.

The escort adjusted the tea cup balanced perfectly in her lap, and sipped it. Her eyes never strayed from the table. At the very least, Integra could say that Heinkel Wolfe lived up to her name, with the stature of an apex predator and the malicious intentions of a guard dog trained only to fight and serve. But Integra could make her crumble.

Penwood had no escorts that were of such powerful, inhuman standing. Instead he surrounded himself with a trio of military soldiers who found the nature of the Hellsing mansion to be relatively off-putting, and relied on Integra’s obedient Vampires to handle the rest. The soldiers were lined against the wall now, unmoving, waiting. They had guns that offered the same protection guarantees as a paper airplane. And Integra remembers a time when that could have made her feel safe. Before her uncle’s betrayal, before her mother’s death.

Maxwell shifted in his seat to lean his weight to his other side and scooped up a paper, finally breaking Integra of her intrusive thoughts. “Should you find anything on your mission,” he began, still half-heartedly smiling, as if trying to be friendly, “I extend to you some assistance from the Vatican.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Penwood interjected.

Maxwell’s expression remained in place. “We prefer to stop a problem before it becomes a problem.”

The door to the meeting room clicked and swung open. From the shadows appeared the head of the reconnaissance branch, a tall and lanky Vampire with a musket as long and as powerful as she swung across her shoulders. She stepped inside with typically quiet steps, shut the door, and addressed her employer with a polite bow.

“Sir Hellsing,” she said, her fangs poking through.

“Ms. Van Winkle,” Integra returned in kind. She compiled several of the documents on the table before her and then offered them out. “I have an urgent assignment for you. Pick a small recon group and prepare to leave for Juneau, Alaska by tonight. Read this debriefing before you go.”

“Alaska?” Rip Van Winkle asked curiously. Her German accent was thick under her formal English. “I have never heard of such a place.”

“It’s an American state.”

Rip’s eager smirk spread from ear to ear and she bowed again. “Of course, sir. I will prepare for my departure.” She rose up, turning to take her leave, but not before glancing knowingly at Seras, then quizzically at the soldiers lined to the wall, and then at the Iscariot escort in the chair. She winked. Heinkel grit her teeth, but she made no move for her guns.

Rip left without another word.

“I motion we bring this meeting to a close,” Maxwell said once the Vampire had shut the door behind her. “We will wait for the return of your unit before making any further decisions on the matter.”

“Agreed,” Integra said compliantly.

“And I’ll be home in time for supper,” Penwood told them with an air of excitement.

Integra cleared her throat. “Perhaps you would care to join us,” she inquired, raising her eyebrows at him. “After all, we have some…financial matters to discuss.”

Penwood knew exactly what she was insinuating. It had been years, yet he was still reeling from the initial shock of her first birthday wish to him consisting of a helicopter with mounted assault weapons. He exhaled in defeat, and relaxed into his chair. “I suppose I could linger a little longer,” he reluctantly replied.

“Very good.”

Maxwell gathered everything together and stood from his chair. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Sir Integra.” He nodded to Heinkel, who put her tea on the stand beside her, and then rose to join him. As they made their way for the exit, Maxwell turned back. He grinned. Bowed. And left.

Integra released her held breath.

_It’s going to be a long week._

* * *

 X

* * *

 

“Shake.”

Jan Valentine had his head in a playboy magazine because everything was boring as fuck on Mondays. And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. And every other fuckin’ night of the week because his job was to babysit human guards who babysat the world’s oldest Vampire. So of course, if anyone was gonna fuck with this place they would have to be slightly more entertaining than petty thieves seeking expensive jewelry and art. They would have to be the real friggin’ deal.

And nothing’s quite as real deal as the world’s oldest Vampire.

“Bruno, shake.”

 _So why the fuck did I let Luke talk me into a gig as boring as this shit?_ he thought, tabbing to the next page. He wasn’t paying much attention to the content. Instead he was watching big bro Luke attempt to train one of the unit’s dumbest Rottweilers from the corner of his vision.

“Bro,” Jan said, “give it a rest already. The damn dog would be more useful as a blood bag.”

“We’re not to harm the canine unit,” Luke replied flatly. He presented a treat to the dog and tried again. “Bruno. Bruno, shake.” Bruno was sitting, at least, patiently at his feet but didn’t seem to respond to Luke’s commands. Luke gestured out his hand. “Shake!”

Stationed on the inside of the main gate next to the check point booth, the brothers could see the activity within the perimeter grounds. They noticed the guards who were escorts for Shelby Penwood in their vehicles or on the benches, smoking, laughing, patrolling. And they noticed the Iscariot escorts for Enrico Maxwell. Father Anderson wasn’t here today but his followers were. Tagaki Yumie was poised by the limousine, unmoving, her unwavering eyes fixated on the front doors of the mansion. Across the lot from her, Jan could see Rip Van Winkle boarding a truck that would transport her and her four hand-picked recon soldiers to the nearest airport. Some kind of mission to the Americas (as he had overheard, not that he was really listening).

“Looks like some shit’s stirring up again,” he remarked, tossing the magazine aside and rising from his fold-up chair.

“Perhaps something interesting,” Luke agreed.

They watched the truck leave the campus through the main gate, and for several prolonged minutes, neither moved. They could feel the power of the approaching night pulsing in their veins. The anticipation of excitement or something worse.

Luke’s radio crackled to life suddenly with a voice from one of the soldier’s inside the mansion. He answered the call with a feigned disinterest. “Go for Valentine.”

 _“Got a small convoy inbound,”_ the voice said matter-of-factly. _“T-minus thirty minutes. Have the soldiers report immediately to weapons check.”_

“Copy,” Luke returned, clipping the radio to his belt. “Disappointing. Shall we greet the convoy?”

Jan shrugged and threw himself back into the chair, scooping up the discarded magazine. “Shit, we ain’t got nothing better to do. We’re just a couple of washed up no-lifes with more pay than hookers to keep us entertained.”

“Call girls aren’t allowed on the property.”

“That was part of the fuckin’ joke, Bro.”

“Hm. Too bad you’ve never been funny.” Luke glanced down at Bruno again, and then raised the treat. “Shake.”

 

* * *

 X

* * *

 

While the sun was left dying over the horizon and all of Integra’s guests (both wanted and unwanted) had finally gone home, the mansion came to life. Integra paced down the corridor to her bedroom, but with the power in her stride you would think she was setting out to save the world (again). She had Seras Victoria to one side, Walter on the other, a lit cigar between her teeth and an itch in her trigger finger.

 _Mondays_.

The Valentine brothers saw only a glimpse of her prowess through the window from their position by the front gates, finally taking up arms to combat any assailants of the night. They were hired specifically as protection detail but Integra couldn’t figure out what compelled Walter to accept their applications. Jan had a mouth that would make God weep in shame and Luke couldn’t train a dog to salivate to a bell if he was Pavlov himself.

Either way, a Vampire was a Vampire, and protection was something she often needed more of than she had ever anticipated in her life. And regardless, the brothers had proven to be more than capable in the field – even if they weren’t living the most exciting immortal lives.

“That’s all for tonight, Walter,” she told him as they reached their destination. “Thank you for your service.”

“It’s always my pleasure,” he responded in kind. He bowed deeply and walked away, disappearing into the shadows.

“And as for you,” she said, addressing Seras, “join the patrol and await for Van Winkle’s landing in America. She should reach the check point by tomorrow morning.”

“Sir.”

Seras was enveloped in a tarp of shadows and she was gone before Integra could blink. Integra entered her quarters and her thoughts kissed the energy that pulsed through the veins of time that slowed, deliberately but briefly, for the encroaching darkness. _I’m awake,_ she told the moon pressing its face curiously to her windows. _Tomorrow, we plan for the worst._

In her mind, a voice whispered.

_Just say the word and I’ll bring the bloodshed, my master._

 

* * *

 X

* * *

 

  _Mon cher._

Seras jolted. How long had she been asleep? How long had she been standing on the balcony of Sir Integra’s room with her anti-tank rifle shrugged onto her shoulder, its dangerous weight gradually leaning her to one side?

She was often losing track of time, hours that seemed like seconds, days like breaths. And perhaps that was a result of her immortal status, sired by an ancient and powerful Vampire who had seen in her the humanity and will to live he lost so many centuries ago. To the ageless, time was but a cup of coffee in the corner of a shop; there would be many instances. There would be many cups…

She turned to the room behind her and saw Integra, the master of her master, rising from her bed. The alarm clock hadn’t even yet gone off. Then Seras became aware off the ringing in her jacket pocket, the intense vibrations of her cellphone. Perhaps that was what had woken the woman, or perhaps Integra was familiar with being alert at all hours, even in her sleep, and the cellphone was potential good news to ease her worry.

Seras felt a familiar movement in her mind, a shadow that crept from her body and materialized. “Mon cher,” Pip Bernadotte tried again, handing over her cellphone. It was still ringing. “You have a call.”

The dawn was ascending, teasing orange into the canopy of the trees and beginning to dust the roof with warm colors. Seras turned away from it and moved her ear to her phone, a smile in her voice. “Rip! I’m glad you made such great time,” she chirped, retreating into the room. “Yes. H…hold on, let me pass you down.”

She gestured the phone to Integra who was now fully awake and setting her glasses rightfully on her face. “Thank you Seras,” she said and accepted the call. “Hello, Ms. Van Winkle. What’s your current situation?”

_“Guten tag! I've met with the representative from Belmont. We are already on our way out of Juneau, en route to Cape Buer.”_

Integra crossed her legs. “I see. How’s the weather?”

_“Much like your personality…frigid.”_

“I’m going to ignore that.”

        

   

On the other end of the line half way across the world, Rip Van Winkle sat in the passenger’s seat of the “borrowed” SUV like it was a bird’s perch with her musket balanced between her legs. Her team wore heavy black winter coats to hide the badges on their uniforms, and at the very least, match their operative gear.

She snickered with good humor. “We did get some information,” she responded. She turned her disinterested gaze to the borrowed GPS that was already in the borrow SUV prior to being borrowed, and it’s coordinates for Cape Buer, counting down their arrival time.

Integra made a quizzical hum into the phone.

“The town has been quiet for some time,” Rip continued, turning her attention now to the alpine landscape subsumed by frost. “According to the locals, from what I overheard anyway, people from Buer weren’t showing up for their jobs or answering their phone calls. A couple of police officers went to investigate yesterday and haven’t responded either.”

 _“I see,”_ Integra said. _“Anything else?”_

Rip cast her eyes to the road when the flashing of red and blue lights appeared around the bend. Ahead of them was a police barricade. “Let me call you back,” she said, her grin descending into a frown.

_“Keep me updated.”_

“Na sicher. Auf wiedersehen!”

Rip hung up the call and pocketed her cell phone. The police ahead of them flagged them down. She could see them all, detecting three officers across two vehicles.

“How should we proceed?” the driver Lucian Kennedy asked, slowing the van to a crawl. He worked in recon for the Belmont Organization - American counter part to the Hellsing organization - born and raised somewhere down south, which at least allowed Rip and her men to integrate into the culture easier than if Rip had taken up this mission by herself. He was tolerable, at least, unfazed by her Vampirism and probably good with a gun.

“Follow my lead,” she told him.

“Only if your lead doesn’t include killing anyone.”

Rip quirked an eyebrow. “Ich würde _dich_ – I mean, Sir Integra made it quite clear we were to keep a low profile.”

“For some reason I don’t believe a word of what you’re saying.”

The first officer approached the window and Lucian rolled it down. “Good morning officer!” Rip declared, her smile wide and charming, her fangs imitating human teeth. She could see that his name badge read WILLIAMS.

“Good morning ma’am,” Williams replied. “I’m sorry but you’re gonna have to turn around. This road is closed to the public right now.”

“Isn’t that a shame?” Lucian said with a sigh. “My friends flew all the way here from Europe to join me in some good ol’ Alaskan sightseeing, and now we can’t even get back to my cabin!”

Williams hesitated. “You live down this way?”

“Seasonally. It’s my grandfather’s cabin, passed down through the generations.” Lucian pointed up ahead. “It’s off this main road here, just before we hit the pass to Cape Buer.”

There was another pause. The other officers were watching the exchange, uneasy. Williams sighed. “Well, I suppose I can’t stop you from going to your house. But don’t go to Cape Buer, alright? We’re conducting an investigation down there.”

“I heard,” Rip said. “What is that all about?”

“Can’t say,” Williams replied quickly. “Now move along. Enjoy your vacation.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lucian said with a polite tip of his hat. He put the car back into gear and steered through the blockage, maintaining the speed limit until the police were out of sight. Rip exhaled, looking at the driver from the corner of her eye.

“You’re the kind of person I want to saw in half,” she told him, no context, no explanation.

Lucian shrugged and turned onto the fork. They passed the hardwood arrow sign dusted by fine snow. It could have been the pride and joy of the town at one point, some kind of testament to the adaptability of humanity.

**CAPE BUER – ½ MILE.**

 

* * *

 X 

* * *

 

Integra had hung up the phone on Rip Van Winkle that morning, except it’s been almost ten whole hours since with no additional communication. She was here again, sitting in uncertainty at the table in the manor’s meeting room, with Enrico Maxwell and Shelby Penwood. Walter to her right, Heinkel in the chair, watching like a hawk, and the military men, poised and unmoving.

But now Sir Hugh Irons had arrived to get an overview of the situation. Military soldiers were brewing in the corridors and outside the mansion grounds, watched by her own men and controlled by the Valentine Brothers. Part of her was unsettled despite the amount of protection in the Hellsing Manor for a threat stirring on the other end of the planet.

“They haven’t reported in yet?” Penwood asked, looking slightly bewildered. They were here all over again.

“No,” Integra answered. She held in her exasperated sigh and instead lit a cigar. “As you knew from our last session, I sent in my head of reconnaissance to deal with the problem directly. The last communication we made was early this morning when she and her men were on the road to Cape Buer.”

“So how should we proceed?” Irons inquired. “You said your recon captain is a Vampire, no?”

“I did. Why does that matter?”

“Should we be concerned with your concern?”

She was unsure. Then her phone rang. Every set of eyes in the room turned to it, waiting as the caller I.D. displayed the contact information. Rip Van Winkle’s name appeared. Integra felt the tension in her gut lift, and she answered the incoming call on speaker.

“Ms. Van Winkle, you’re late-”

A ragged gasping filled the other end of the line. There was a quiet that settled unevenly over the congregation. _“My apologies, Sir Hellsing…it’s Lucian Kennedy, Belmont reconnaissance. Reporting in from the heart of Hell, Alaska.”_

“Kennedy,” she said, “where’s Rip?”

He was gasping into the phone. _“I don’t…I don’t know. We were…investigating into Buer and then…and those things…”_

Integra felt the dread sink her stomach like lead. He wasn’t making much sense, and she assumed he was bleeding profusely from whatever wound he had. “Kennedy, I need you to take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

 _“Sorry sir, I’ve got shrapnel in my leg the length of a goddamn flag pole.”_ He inhaled, gathered himself together.

Integra waited, her fingers latticed together. “Kennedy. What’s happening? Is it a Vampire we’re dealing with?”

He gasped again.

_“It’s…”_

 

* * *

X

* * *

 

“Quiet,” Lucian said as they stepped out of the SUV and into the center of Cape Buer.

They hadn’t seen anyone in a town with a population of 239 people; houses, mostly, a store or two, the sheriff’s office, and a church, surrounded by forest and mountain side. Mist from the hills had settled along the road but the air was relatively thick and humid, allowing them to see in every direction. The police cars from the Juneau station were in the center of the square, abandoned.

It had begun to snow.

Rip swung her musket over her shoulders and waited. Far ahead she could see where the town bordered a great lake, where the mist rolled upon it as if it were made of glass. She glanced at one of the vehicles, at the blood stained on the driver door. There was certainly _something_ here, if not ghouls than perhaps a rogue and hungry Vampire.

“You ever wonder if it’s aliens?” one of the squad members remarked.

Lucian rolled his eyes. “Callum, really? _Aliens_?”

“All I’m saying is that Alaska has alien sightings reported in the _thousands_.”

Lucian offered Rip her cell phone from the car, but she shook her head. He pocketed it instead.

Callum slapped a fresh clip into his pistol and shrugged. “Look, I prepare for everything, okay? If Vampires exist, aliens aren’t too farfetched.”

 _“Ssh,”_ Rip hissed, her eyes flicking back and forth in alarm. “I hear footsteps.”

The men fell quiet and listened. From somewhere all around them, they heard the crunching of gravel, breaking frost under boots. A gradual growling that rose up, louder and louder. “Ghouls?” Callum whispered to Lucian.

“Could be,” he replied.

“They’re slow and stupid,” said the fourth squad member, Bellis. “We can dispatch them easily.”

 _That’s strange_ , Rip wondered to herself, loading a single musket ball. _Then why didn’t Sir Penwood’s men return? Or Mr. Belmont's? Weren’t they trained to handle ghouls?_

From the surrounding buildings the dead began to appear, one by one, shifting on unsteady legs and driven only by the will to feed on the living. Rip adjusted her glasses. She muttered something to herself in German and then spoke up to her team, “Aim for the head and kill ‘em dead.”

“Sir,” her men recited, taking aim at the bodies.

They fired.

* * *

 

Integra leaned forward on her elbows. “And then what happened, Kennedy?”

  

* * *

  

“They’re not dying!”

The men were being pushed further and further apart as the bodies they shot, again and again and again, took no exception to the bullets piercing their skulls and torsos. Rip grit her teeth as her musket ball shredded its way through the dozens of ghouls closest to her, and then redirected her bullet, instead blowing through their legs until their limbs were severed. The torsos that were knocked down reeled for a moment, as if in shock.

And to her horror, they kept crawling.

She smashed their heads in a spray of brain matter and decayed flesh. The energy in the town felt alive somehow, as if the swarming of these ghouls was only a matter of human presence. As if they had been called into battle by something unseen. _But I didn’t feel the Vampire’s aura,_ she thought, sniping down a ghoul that shambled within arm’s reach of Lucian. _How is this not the work of a Vampiric creature? Why haven’t they ventured beyond the town’s borders?_

Her questions were interrupted by a shriek, a shrill and terrifying war cry. Desperately inhuman.

“Get back in the van!” Rip exclaimed, diverting her musket through the ghouls’ hands, their jaws, their ribs. Blood and acid splattered along the ground. “We’re getting out of here!”

Callum attempted to back into the SUV first when the sickening sound of grinding metal filled the air and then _WHAM._ The vehicle took flight, slamming onto Callum with the force of a meteor and crushing everything in his body. It turned him into little more than a red paste on the ground.

A shadow zipped through the growing army of undead. It threw itself into Lucian, sending him soaring through the church wall. Rip heard him crash into the pews, the splintering of wood and sagging structure masking his screams. It swung for her head, but she ducked and rolled to her knees, firing off a round of her musket. The shadow slipped around the shot as if she had impacted water.

Bellis was distracted for only a brief moment, a split second, a heartbeat. The undead grabbed ahold of him, and Rip couldn’t bring herself to turn as he was flayed alive. The horrible screams, the scent of blood and the acute sound of tearing fabric, tearing flesh.

Rip directed her bullet at the shadow. It dodged most of the blows and several burst through its incoherent form, splattering around a black substance that resembled tar. The creature shrieked. It screamed and screamed and then it was lurching into the air.

She saw it ascend to the sky. She saw its wings spread, bones connected by tar and rotten, sinew flesh. Nothing like a Vampire, nothing like her or Seras or –

Lucian pulled himself from the debris of the church, reaching for Rip standing in the snow with her eyes blow wide open in fear. The shadow descended upon her like an angel.

And then all was dark.

* * *

 X

* * *

 “Where are the ghouls now?” Integra asked.

 _“I don’t know,”_ Lucian replied. He grunted, as if he was moving against the pain in his leg. _“I can’t hear them anymore. I’m still in the church. If I try to make a run for it, I don’t think I’ll make it out of town.”_ He made a disgruntled noise _. “I’m starting to get cold.”_

“Listen soldier, I want you to stay where you are and hide yourself. We’re coming.”

_“Yes, sir.”_

She disconnected the call. Her gaze turned up to the worried expressions of her company. “I’ll be sending my full team then,” she told them with finality. “This has become a full-scale operation.”

“Need I remind you that you’re operating outside the confines of England’s law?” Maxwell interjected. He wasn’t saying no, or attempting to stop her. But he had a loyalty to his job as she had a loyalty to the crown, and Integra knew that northern America was unfamiliar territory. It wasn’t England or Ireland or her own backyard. She rarely had to venture outside of England for more than simple business meetings, often landing in countries strange or exotic or abhorrent. But she had her reasons for avoiding the Americas...

Integra felt her headache approaching, felt the familiar throb of agitation in her temples and the clenching of her veins.

“So we make amends with the Belmonts,” she said reluctantly.

Irons looked at her with worry. “I doubt they will offer us more assistance, or even if they _did_ , should they wish to interfere and take this mission over themselves, there will be nothing we can do.”

“I have men trapped in that town, and I won’t be coming home without them.”

Maxwell leaned back in his chair. “I suppose it would be a shame if I didn’t send a representative from the Vatican to make sure the pastor of that parish is alive,” he said casually. Integra shifted her focus to him. His expression was distant, keeping up its disinterested façade. “Should my missionaries happen to help you during their holy mission, I will be beyond my power to stop them.”

Integra wondered for a moment if Maxwell was being honest with her. Or if he was going to use this opportunity to spread the good will of the Vatican for his own personal gain. Either way, she looked at him and replied with, “I understand.”

“Are we in agreement?” Penwood asked the table. They gave him reaffirming nods.

“We’ll establish contact with the Belmont Organization,” Irons said, “and we’ll send Sir Integra to America to handle the situation. If it’s a potential threat to the United States, it could pose a potential threat to us as well.”

“I’ll prepare to leave in the next two hours,” Integra told them with finality and she brought her cigar to her lips, her will to the call of the dark.

The room pitched. The shadows shifted and she felt a cold and cruel air bend around her like gravity. From the darkness her servant appeared, a tall and terrifying creature with the blood of countless lives shifting beneath the surface of his skin. “My master,” he said. His arms stretched to her like spider legs, beckoning for the beginning of the end, his eyes frenzied with blood lust.

_“It’s time to begin the hunt.”_


	2. Act 1 Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to everyone for all the support so far! I hope this chapter was worth the wait!

#  **ACT 1**

**Part 2:** I sold my soul to the devil. He gave it back and asked for a favor.

   

* * *

 

   

The rented apartment flat in Juneau, Alaska was the perfect set up for staking out. It overlooked the road to Cape Buer and turned its back to the distraction of the city. Integra would have preferred a space with more rooms and wider floors, but the Belmont Organization was adamant with its choice, and unfortunately for Integra Hellsing, she was in a country where she didn’t have to the power to persuade them otherwise. At the very least, _they_ would be the ones who secured the outpost and lined its walls with wires, saving her a headache and a half.

Integra stood in the center of the living room and lit a cigar. Alucard was to her right, Walter was to her left, and Seras was sitting modestly in the love seat. Although there was no present danger, she felt the weight of worry ease from her shoulders.

“Mr. Belmont,” she said with disinterest, “I’m glad you could join us on such short notice.”

The man across the room from her was always just that: cross. He reminded her of a tree, sturdy and thick, ready to combat anything in the path of his goals. His salt and pepper hair was combed back, neat, his gray suit equally trim and clean, his pale skin was often ghostly. Calvin Edmond Belmont was hardened by years of doing what she did – combating the dangerous, the supernatural, and the stupid.

Belmont grunted. “And I may leave with equally short notice, but I’m keen on assessing the situation for myself, first and foremost.”

Lucille Belmont was always at his side. She looked a lot less like her father and very much like her mother, with dark curly hair brushed to the side and the right half of her scalp buzzed, tanned skin and freckled. She wore her Belmont Organization spec-ops jumpsuit under a varsity jacket. “Hey Red,” she said to Alucard, giving him a Cheshire grin. “I haven’t seen you in _years_. What’s hanging?”

Alucard smirked and let his fangs show through. “Nothing yet.”

Lucille laughed and received a short look from her father. Calvin returned his gaze to Integra. “I was informed that you’ve lost contact with your head of reconnaissance.”

Integra’s eyes briefly flickered to Belmont’s other shoulder. His personal escort was a man as tall and menacing as Alucard, often emitting a grunt of response but otherwise entirely silent. Hans Gunche, if she was recalling correctly, and as she had found out the hard way once, a dangerous match for her Vampires.

“Indeed,” she replied, looking at Calvin again. “It’s been almost two days without additional contact. I attempted to hail Lucian Kennedy-”

“My officer?” Calvin inquired.

“Yes, he possessed the recon captain’s phone and used it to contact me directly. When I attempted to reach him after we landed at the airport, he didn’t answer. As of this morning, the line is completely dead.”

Calvin hummed in thought. “The situation is worse than I realized.” There was a pause where he seemed to be waiting for the tension in the air to thin. “Perhaps we’ll have to send more _competent_ fighters into the field, then.” He turned to his daughter. “I trust you won’t disappoint me.”

“I never do,” she responded with a smirk.

“Shall I ensure your safety?” Alucard suggested. He turned his attention to Integra and anticipated her response.

“She won’t need it,” Calvin shot back.

Integra exhaled a stream of smoke. “That might be the safest course of action. I don’t doubt Lucille’s capability’s, but we don’t know what we’re dealing with. It might be best if she had someone to watch her back.” She glanced at Lucille. “I think these are agreeable terms.”

Lucille glanced up at her father whose lips have been pressed together in thought. “I think it sounds like fun! Besides, I haven’t worked with Red since High School, it’ll be a nice change of pace.”

Calvin sighed. “Fine. Take the truck.”

Lucile’s grin widened. “Rad.”

“Go with them, Seras,” Integra ordered. “Keep us posted.”

Seras caught up to her master as he and Lucille made their exit. She cast one last quizzical look over her shoulder, stepped out into the hall, and closed the door behind her.

Walter and Hans were both quiet as the encounter finished playing out, neither of them wavering, as if there was an unspoken vendetta between them. The tension would most likely alleviate when the Belmont operatives arrived to finish setting up the apartment, at least for a few hours, but Integra knew that the fiasco from eight years ago was fresh in everyone’s mind.

Integra waited several prolonged moments before she said, “I assume you aren’t still bitter about our last encounter.”

“I’m willing to set it aside,” Calvin replied. He was honest, even though his tough demeanor didn’t change. “We can discuss it at a later date.”

“Over coffee, perhaps?”

“Preferably doctored with a little gin.”

Well, at least they were finally agreeing on something.

   

* * *

 X

* * *

    

 

The town of Cape Buer was quiet. Alucard, Lucille, and Seras arrived at the border where the forest road cleared and the pavement became harder, more icy. There should have been a police barricade half way down the road but both of the cruisers were abandoned and cold. Even now there was a strange atmosphere, a rising tension in the snow that filtered down like ash from the sky.

“Hey Red,” Lucille said, toeing the edge of the layer of frost, “you feel that, right?”

“I do,” he replied.

Seras leaned forward. “Feel what?”

“You have a third eye, don’t you?” Lucille asked, taking Seras’ hand and waving it over the frost. “It’s residual black magic. Feel the bristle? Like static?”

Seras could tell now, the way her hairs stood up on end like she was about the get struck by lightning. She smelled her Master’s ancient scent, Lucille’s earthy aroma, and then the distinct smoldering ash from the circle. “I’ve never felt something this unusual before. What’s it from?”

Lucille let go and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Could be anything,” she said passively. “Voodoo, necromancy, some kind of demonic ritual…they all create a border around the afflicted area, and the bigger the border, the more powerful the caster.”

“So what kind of person can make a border that surrounds an entire town?”

“A Lich,” Alucard answered. His anticipation was sadistic, his instincts primed for the hunt.

“I was leaning towards an estranged necroshaman,” Lucille said. “Good thing for us though, there’s a border at all. Means that whatever is going on inside the town won’t make it out. Or if this Lich decides to move on, the border will fall and with it, everything affected will collapse.”

“Explains why the problem hasn’t spread,” Seras observed. “Any way to break it?”

Alucard grinned and stepped through the aura. “Kill the Lich, of course.”

Lucille followed him without complaint. Seras felt Pip’s unease, but he was unresponsive when she prodded him for an answer. Eventually she jogged to catch up to them, sticking close to her master, her crimson eyes scanning the buildings for anything unusual (like the shambling remains of a corpse, or something worse).

They didn’t have to scour most of the cape to find what they were looking for.

At the center of town, out front the chapel, was a convulsing army of the undead. They were swaying, occasionally inching forward, as if waiting for stimulus, and hissed at each other if they bumped. Seras recognized the ghoul-turned Bellis, who was missing most of his innards and his entire left arm, by the remains of an SUV that was blanketed over a twisted, twitching body.

“Check that out,” Lucille said, gesturing to the crowd, to the ghouls with bullet holes in their heads. “Most of the bastards already ate lead.”

“So why aren’t they dead?” Seras inquired.

“It’s resurrection instead of infection,” Alucard replied. “When a Lich casts their necromancy on an area, nothing that dies remains dead. But they’re of no trouble to us. We can incapacitate them for now.”

Lucille withdrew her hands from her pockets and flexed her fingers. “Ready when you are, Red.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. He glanced at Seras out of the corner of his eye. She returned the look. “Get them out of the way.”

“Yes, Master.”

Seras started forward, her left arm dissolving into shadows that curled and beckoned for the massacre, for something almost as thirst-quenching as the beginning of the end. Her primal, vengeful bloodlust began to surface, years of trauma egged by years of carnage, and all of it, defined and sated by the full acceptance of her monstrous nature. She didn’t mind it much. Not anymore.

Pip’s voice echoed out in the back of her mind _. “To battle, mon cher? It’s been a while. I’ve missed how sexy you look coated in the blood of our enemies.”_

_I’m not going to bother entertaining that._

Seras was within several yards of the ghouls when they finally recognized her. One by one they began to turn, like a wave against a shoreline, and one by one they began to lurch forward. Their hungry calls rose up in sonance. Shuffling, growling, scraping bone and flesh on gravel. Blood and visceral fluids splattering through the snow.

 _“Might I suggest decapitation?”_ another voice asked Seras, prodding eagerly at her brain.

 _“Shut it, hag,”_ Pip snapped back.

Seras lunged forward. She swung easily through the first wall of bodies, severing limbs and slicing torsos in half, sending a rush of gore into the sky. Several heads rolled to the pavement. She spun on her heel and slammed her way through another line as if they were nothing more than wet paper bags. If they crawled, she smashed their skulls with her boots, leaving a water painting of brain matter along the ground.

 _“Can I wake up now?”_ the voice questioned insistently. _“Let me have a taste of the carnage.”_

_“Didn’t you hear me before? I said shut up.”_

_“I don’t answer to you, Frenchie.”_

Seras grit her teeth and tore into another circle of ghouls, ripping flesh from bone with ease and precision. She felt the creatures swarming and grabbing for her body, her flesh, and the few who did manage to touch her lost their arms, their legs, and then their faces. She barreled through another lineup. The guts rained down, the blood turned the sky around her as red as her eyes.

Seras pulled out on the other side of the crowd. The number of ghouls was still staggering (it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle but if she wasn’t careful she would be quickly, and quite begrudging, overwhelmed).

 _“Come on police girl,”_ came the mocking voice again.

_“Don’t listen to her, mon cher.”_

“Fine,” she said with a sneer, “lend me your power.”

A maniacal, menacing laughter filled the brim of the air. Seras could feel Pip recoiling, feel his exasperation and his reluctance. Symbols and numbers and strange letters began to cascade their way up, like a reverse waterfall, filling in the surface of Seras’ skin below her eyes. She solidified her arm and then reached out, and from the shadows a familiar weapon began to form between her hands.

 _“Remember our practice,”_ the voice said. _“It’s not a toy.”_

Seras gripped the scythe firmly. Zorin Blitz wrapped her shadowy aura around Seras’ arms, guiding her movements as they swung the blade up and onto the Vampire’s shoulder. She could feel the tilt of its weight ease with the support of its original master.

_“Now let’s kill this boredom, shall we?”_

Seras lunged again. She swung the scythe into the ghouls and diced them in half at the waist and then slashed up towards the sky, carving them into smaller portions. Zorin instructed her movements with borderline impatience, guiding the direction of her strength.

Seras’ swing went wide when she cut through a ghoul that was thinner than it appeared, wedging the blade into another one’s abdomen. She reeled back, tearing the weapon free, and spun into a circle, slicing through the legs of the closest ghouls. Then she swung the scythe upwards, cleaving a ghoul in half from the waist up, leaving its split torso to fall lankily to the side.

Seras finally brought the scythe back to her shoulder and swung forward from there, leaning all of her weight into it. The blade slammed into the next set of ghouls, cutting their heads from their bodies, and then swiped back with a quick pivot, slicing off their arms and cleaving through their torsos.

She raised it up like an executioner’s ax. Bellis appeared, his one good arm reaching out. The scythe descended with the finesse of an angel and carved him directly down the middle. Both halves hit the pavement with a sickening squelch.

The ghouls turned to the Draculina and swarmed.

    

   

   

   

While the carnage took place at the center of town, Lucille and Alucard slipped around the ranks of the dead and entered the church. The walls were high but the room was small, consisting of barely enough space to fit no more than a hundred people, but only if crammed side by side in the pews. Alucard inspected the pool of blood on the floor near the cavity in the wall. The smear trailed from the impact location to the podium, where Lucille was inspecting the weeping statue of Jesus.

Alucard followed the blood, checking each pew for a living (or more realistically, freshly deceased) person. He came upon the scaffold, and peered under the service table. There was another pool of dried blood stained deep into the carpet. And…

He picked up Rip’s cellphone. “That agent of yours isn’t here,” he said, checking the phone’s battery. It turned on, at the very least, but only had 5% remaining. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s already dead.”

“You think your recon Vampire is still alive, then?” Lucille asked. She toed the rug, hands in her pockets, humorlessly watching the massacre happening just outside the chapel walls.

“We won’t know until we find the Lich.”

Lucille flipped out her cell and dialed her father. After several rings the other line answered. “Hey Dad, we’re at the church. Kennedy’s not here, everyone’s dead. It’s just a usual day for us.” She paused. Alucard could hear Calvin grumbling his responses, which could have been the result of a multitude of different reasons. Irritation was, however, his most defined trait. “Got it. We’ll try to find Van Winkle and wrap it up.”

She ended the call and pocketed her phone. Alucard drifted towards the chapel doors. He turned his eager attention to Seras as she tore through the remaining forces of the undead, severing limbs and heads with Zorin’s scythe.

Lucille sauntered up to Alucard’s side. “Oh yeah,” she said, giving him a coy smile, “she’s definitely one of yours.”

There was a shimmer in Lucille’s peripheral vision. She craned her neck to her right, east, she thought, when a light flickered and then a strange voice drifted into the gale. “There’s a point house over there,” she remarked, gesturing to the edge of the cape where the harbor opened into the sea. There, nestled between a rocky shore and the caressing snow, sat a lighthouse and caretaker’s home. Its light was dimming, sometimes flickering with full intensity before ultimately going dark again.

The strange voice sung out. This time all three of them froze as if triggering a trip wire. Seras slammed the skull of the last ghoul into the pavement and recollected herself, turning her attention to the road leading to the point house. The voice was, in fact, _singing_. Its dulcet qualities agreed with the wings of the wind and carried across the cape, rolling in to replace the scattering mist. Seras could have sworn she recognized the accented timbre, the gentle but confident melody.

“Isn’t that _Der Freischütz_?” she remarked with her gaze fixated on the lighthouse.

Lucille frowned at her. “No idea what that is.”

“Quiet,” Alucard said. He would have, on normal circumstances, been eager to follow the voice and find her, much like a siren at the edge of the evening tide. But something settled uncomfortably against his stomach. Instinct acted first, often times, like now, without initiation. He knew there was a chance Rip Van Winkle was alive. And likewise, he knew there was a chance this was a trap.

“Shall we?” Lucille prodded, poking Alucard with her elbow.

He looked at her, his expression unchanging but she could tell something set him off.

“Let’s,” was all he replied with before he trekked into the snow and the singing rose up through the trees like an omen.

  

* * *

 X

* * *

   
The singing abruptly ended as they crossed out of the barrier surrounding the town. Unfortunately, the danger still loomed like the icy mist rolling in from the mountains, and remains of bodies were strewn across the path leading to the point house. Intestines, digits, teeth, fragments of ribs, and scattered spinal vertebrae. Seras inspected the crushed bones, the flayed flesh, the torn scraps of clothing in the fray. She could tell the remains once belonged to living people, perhaps the last survivors of the cape.

 _There’s no way the ghouls picked these corpses clean,_ Seras told herself. _What could have done this, then? Wolves? Crows?_

She kneeled into the snow and picked up dog tags. Identifiers, really, given to all the employees of the Belmont organization. She turned them both over in her hands. “Look,” she said, showing Alucard. “They’re Kennedy’s.”

Alucard however, didn’t face her token. Instead his glare was fixed on the forest that corroded the length of the mountains. She felt his anticipation synch with hers. After a moment, defined by the cold wind and by Lucille, alerted to the shadows in the branches hovering over the underbrush, they were once again distracted by the lighthouse.

The beam flickered and died.

They turned their backs to the ominous forest and trekked up the path to the front steps of the house. Lucille pushed her hand against the door. It creaked open, unlocked and unlatched, and scraped across the frost-bitten floorboards.

Ahead of them, a body was slumped at the foot of the fireplace.

Lucille grunted with disinterest, venturing into the bedroom to the left. Alucard moved into the back of the house where the passage to the lighthouse was sealed off by another door. Seras inspected the walls, the photographs of a man with his presumed wife and son, the homey art pieces of ships and warmer climates, and then the claw marks.

If she didn’t know any better, this man’s death could have been by aggravated bear. Unfortunately, Seras was beyond the simple explanations of humans and she traversed the room to examine the body. The corpse was face-up, missing one of its eyes, its throat, most of its torso and a leg. The blood had pooled around it and soaked into the rug. Frills of flesh were marked by the edges of claws and teeth, both canine and human.

“I found another body,” Lucille called from the bedroom. “There’s no way the Lich’s undead goons made it this far from the summoning circle.” She returned to the main room, her hands clasped around a worn book of records. “I didn’t think Liches had a fancy for flesh.”

“They don’t,” Alucard said matter-of-factly. He phased through the sealed door, leaving the girls to their own accord.

Lucille flipped through the bound, dog-eared pages of the book. “History of the town,” she told Seras, tabbing to another page.

“Anything we could use?”

“Doubt it. I just like reading history.”

Seras quirked her eyebrow. Turning her back to Lucille, she leaned her hand towards the man’s bloated face. He had been dead only ten hours or so. There was still a chance.

“Zorin, let me see.”

Her familiar grumbled. Eventually a surge of runes began to appear across Seras’ skin, dancing along her arm until they disappeared beneath her glove. She removed it, gazing intently at the center of her palm until the flesh split apart and an eye, dilated in frenzy and ravenous for a new mind to invoke, blinked back.

She grasped the man’s forehead fully, pressing the eye into the dead neurons of his skin. The darkness soaked her vision. A hazy aura settled like mist as she searched for the lingering remnants of the man’s memories. It came to her as fragments, much like shards of broken glass from a mirror, reeling through the last sparks of cold and blackness.

She saw blood, fangs, antlers – the door to the cabin creaking open. She felt the fire blazing, the heat that pulsed through his skin, the stuttering fear in his heart. She heard the screams of the woman from the bedroom but in reverse, sucked into her throat, time reversing, the memories blurred by death.

And then she saw it.

A strange and warped beast pulling its shambling body into the point house, built like a bear but made of hanging and matted flesh, bones, the body parts of its victims, the torn faces of its felled meals. Its head bore a deer’s skull, and the ports, like its shoulders and spine, were jutting with jagged antlers. A tarnished pelt of fur covered its back and some of its chest, arms, and legs, which were almost lupine.

It lunged and broke Seras of her trance. The memories screamed. Zorin quickly absorbed the brunt of the kickback but Seras’ equilibrium was still thrown into a loop, firing off bursts of thunder in her mind, sending her to her knees.

Lucille hissed and covered her nose with her sleeve. “Christ almighty, what the hell is _that_?”

Seras glanced over in her panic and saw it again, the beast, its face in the window of the porch –

_“Lucille!”_

—the beast slammed through the wall of the point house and sank its jaws into Lucille’s shoulder. She barely managed more than a scream before it whipped its head around and sent her across the room and into the farthest wall. Several bones snapped under the force of the blow. Her neck cracked at an angle and she landed in a heap, unmoving.

The final remnants of the man’s memories surged through Seras’ brain. _Unholy beast – the Spirit of the Mountain – Wendigo, Wendigo, Wendigo – the Spirit of the Mountain, Nadia, it’s real! Look it’s all real –_

Seras’ arm dissolved into shadow, but she hadn’t recovered from the recoil of the mind-splicing and the creature moved like a bolt of lightning. It swung its claws for her head. Zorin materialized between them, blocking the blow with her scythe. From the shadows pooled on the floor Pip appeared, creating an illusion of birds that spiraled into a gale around the beast.

It shrieked, blinded, sounding like a horrible sonance of twisting metal and its melded victims. The faces on its body were all different voices, all different cries of agony.

The beast swung its claws wildly. Just as quick as they came, the birds exploded into feathers and dripping tar of shadows. Seras was clear across the room by Lucille’s body. She shouldered Zorin’s scythe, her fiery glare fixated on the creature. She subconsciously beckoned for her master.

 _“A Wendigo?”_ Pip inquired, lighting a cigarette. _“Never seen one of those before. The north is certainly full of surprises.”_

The beast lurched, hissing. A distorted face on its torso sobbed and begged for Seras to drop the scythe.

 _“The real question is where it came from,”_ he continued. _“Is this a gross byproduct of the Lich’s doing?”_

“Guess we’ll find out,” Seras replied, gripping her weapon with both hands.

    

* * *

 X

* * *

    

Alucard ascended the steps, his normally non-existent footfalls rattling the older, colder metal staircase. He paused only briefly at each platform to observe the swinging lanterns and the framed pictures, much like the ones from the point house down below. From the darkness eating away at the lighthouse’s interior, he could feel a presence that wasn’t his own from somewhere above him. With it came a broken, disjointed humming.

Alucard cleared the staircase swiftly. He stepped off the platform and out into the brittle air.

From up here he could see the entirety of Cape Buer, the mountains like snake jaws around it, the graveyard of skyscrapers making up Juneau in the far distance and each little light, flickering and cascading. The town resembled a battlefield now that is was littered with the remains of the reanimated dead. He could now see the extent of the damaged building fronts, their shattered windows and the blood on the walls and snow and pavement.

 _A Lich with a personal vendetta,_ he mused and turned his back to the carnage. He phased through the door to the beacon room.

There, seated with her back against the far wall, was Rip Van Winkle. Her hand clutched her abdomen, her gun was balanced between her legs, her head hung low against her chest. Alucard waited, watching for movements or pained gasps. Then he stepped forward and around the beacon. The container around the light had a spider web of breaks that would certainly crumble if the wind touched it.

Although his movements were silent, Rip still sensed his presence. “Alucard,” she said wearily, dragging her head up and grinning at him. Blood cascaded through her fingers like fine silk. “I’m glad you saw my light. Stupid thing isn’t working very well.”

“We heard your singing first.”

She quirked her eyebrow. “Are you sure? I’ve been confined in this room for the last few days.”

He could see she had been impaled by a stake that missed her heart by a little less than an inch. She wouldn’t be able to heal the wound if she couldn’t remove it first. “Was this the Lich’s doing?” he asked, kneeling at her side.

“It wasn’t able to kill me otherwise.”

Alucard motioned for her to lean in. Rip grit her teeth and slumped forward, her hands moving from her sternum to her musket. The stake was jammed all the way out and the edges were jagged, catching on her flesh like hooks. It was makeshift, no doubt, nothing like the professional tools a real hunter or priest would use. “Couldn’t pull it out,” she told him. Blood pooled onto the floor between her knees. “Pushing it through made it worse.”

Alucard secured the end. “On the count of three, then.”

“Last time you said that you-”

He ripped the stake through her back, pulling with it tendrils of flesh and inner organs. Rip screamed against the pain. She was swearing in her native language as she collapsed, curled into a ball on the floor with both hands pressing on the wound to ease the burn. Alucard felt the heat of the stake in his hand. He tossed it away with a huff of disgust.

Rip’s flesh began to amend itself. She relaxed, the pain ebbing into little more than an intense itch, and after another minute she pushed up to her feet.

“Why were you hiding in here?” he inquired.

“The Lich didn’t seem to like going into this place,” she replied, moving across the room to collect her coat from the floor. She slipped it on and zipped it up, perhaps an attempt at covering her exposed skin. “You’re not alone, are you?”

Alucard appeared by the exit. “I came with Seras and Lucille.”

“Oh, that girl from Belmont, right? I figured they would have gotten involved at this rate.” Rip kicked the beacon. It flickered again before dying. “Damn stupid thing.”

Something tilted in the air. Alucard heard Seras but her call to him was a small, panicked whisper; it reminded him of a hum of wind through bristled trees. “We should take our leave,” he told Rip, his gaze fixed intently on the platform outside. As if he was waiting for something to appear there.

Rip met him at his side. “What were you saying, before, about hearing my singing?”

A bestial, unholy scream filled the brim of the sky around them.

The Vampires exchanged looks, and without another moment between them, descended.

   

* * *

 X

* * *

   

A howl echoed through the cabin and Seras nearly flinched.

Lucille’s body shuddered and exploded with energy. She began to morph, claws and reversing limbs, bones cracking and wounds healing. The scent of earth permeated like smoke from alchemy. Rising up on all fours with steam billowing from her body, the Direwolf assumed her shape; her fur was deep auburn and cedar brown, the black fur around her eyes formed a diamond at the center of her face.

The Wendigo howled back.

Lucille threw her entire weight into the beast, clamping her jaws around the Wendigo’s arm. She lifted it like a ragdoll and tossed it through the front wall with ease, dragging the fight out into the snow.

Without another thought, Seras rushed into the brawl. She swung the scythe up like a crescent moon and then down with the strength of a meteor, wedging the blade into the Wendigo’s shoulder plate. It screeched in agony. She ripped the weapon free, pulling out fragments of bone and strips of flesh.

Lucille launched over Seras and clamped down on the Wendigo’s neck, driving it into the ground with all her strength. The creature’s tail assembled itself and unfurled, a long series of sharp-tipped bones and ribs to mimic a scorpion’s. It slammed into Lucille’s underside, again and again and again, ripping out chunks of fur, puncturing layers of flesh and muscle.

Lucille screamed. She grit her teeth harder, nearly tearing the monster’s head free of its body. Seras descended and slammed her blade into the Wendigo’s chest. Its lashing tail turned its next strike to her but Pip materialized out of her shadow and grabbed hold, redirecting the blow into the ground.

 _“Beeellmooonnnt,”_ one of the faces cried. _“Help us! Help us, please! We’re starving!”_

Lucille’s eyes went wide. The Wendigo roared and its claws shot up, digging into the Wolf’s sternum. It threw her off and into the snow, and in the same fluid motion, back-handed Seras in the other direction. The Wendigo rose, tearing the scythe free of its body. The weapon dissolved into shadows, like embers. Black blood splattered along the ground beneath its feet.

Lucille pushed herself up and snarled. Her wounds smoked as they sealed. Seras grabbed her chin and cracked her broken jaw back into place.

 _“We’ve descended into Hell, Samiel,”_ one of the faces screamed.

Seras’ arm dissolved into whips of shadow. The Wendigo’s own injuries were gradually amending, lacing together with threads of tendons and bridges of ligaments.

Lucille’s body shuddered, her crimson aura flaring up around her as she retracted into her human form. “Tough fucker,” she said with a smirk, flexing her fingers.

“Are you alright?” Seras asked.

“Of course I am.”

The Draculina nodded and returned her attention to the Wendigo. It raised its head high into the air, inhaling mighty breaths as if attempting to pick up a new smell. _“Look,”_ one of the faces said, almost perfectly mimicking the lighthouse keeper’s voice, _“the Spirit of the Mountain, Nadia, it’s real! Look, it’s all real!”_

And then it cried out, howling in despair and in agony.

Seras dropped her fist into the ground and shadows branched out like lightning bolts, piercing the creature’s thick hide with the force of crashing vehicles. The Wendigo was pinned helplessly to the dirt. Lucille exploded into crimson aura and assumed her wolfman form, dropping into the anchored Wendigo. She grabbed its face and slammed its head into the ground until the snow turned bloody and the bones began to cave under the force.

The Wendigo suddenly exploded into mist. Lucille’s arm rammed into the hardened dirt and her bones shattered upon impact. The mist spiraled with the next gale of wind, recovering several yards of distance before condensing into the beast once more. It hissed out of the ports in its skull and frost cascaded across its body, wounds amending.

“Goddammit,” Lucille growled. Her bones audibly cracked into place.

 _“Hungry,”_ a face on the Wendigo cried, _“we’re so hungry.”_

A bullet whistled as it sliced through the very tendrils of the air, propelled forward by a supernatural force. It pierced through the creature’s hide, punching holes into its pelt and into its flesh and bone and faces, tearing out entire sections of muscle. It screamed but the bullet kept coming, unrelenting, biting and swerving and smashing through its chest, its shoulder, one of its horns, its upper legs. Each wound smoked as it healed. Still the bullet pounded away.

Finally the creature roared, turned to the forest and limped away. Lucille made a move to give chase but Alucard appeared before her, halting the girl in her tracks.

“C’mon Red,” she said, beginning to assume her Direwolf form. “It’s wounded!”

“You and I both know it’s not going to die this way,” he replied placidly.

Lucille sighed and reverted, casually sticking her hands in her pockets. “Jeez Red, eight years ago we would’ve hunted that thing to the edge of the world. You’re not getting soft on me, are you?”

Alucard didn’t seem phased by her taunt. Either way, he didn’t respond.

Lucille gave it a moment, and then prodded him again. “Integra’s rubbing off on you, isn’t she? I told you human empathy was gonna drag you down someday.”

This time he turned his gaze to her and something dangerous flashed across his expression. Seras winced, expecting him to pull out his gun, anticipating a brawl right there in the heart of Alaska, but he didn’t move more than that. Lucille must have sensed the same danger, she was a Werewolf after all, but she was caught between the world’s scariest demon, his sired servant, and a generation-distanced sharpshooter – yet she merely grunted. No attempt at shifting. No attempt at engaging a fight.

“Sorry,” she said finally, “I didn’t mean to say it like that. You know what I was getting at.”

Seras glanced back at Rip, who shook her head. There was no use getting involved.

After another moment, Alucard looked away. “We should prioritize the Lich. However, I’m not going to stop you from hunting the spirit if that’s what you wish.”

“I don’t wish for _anything_ , Red. I’m just doing my job.”

“Then I won’t stand in the way.”

Lucille pressed her lips together. They had reached some semblance of agreement, even though the silence was now entirely uncomfortable. Rip swung her musket over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. “If we’re done arguing,” she said, gesturing to the mountain pass ahead, “there’s a burial ground somewhere up that way. That’s where I last encountered the Lich.”

Alucard trekked off into the snow, leaving no footprints in his wake, and Rip followed him without a word. Seras glanced at Lucille who didn’t notice. She appeared collected, maybe even calm. Eventually Seras followed her master. Lucille would probably tag behind for a while, or split paths and attempt to put the mountain spirit back in the ground.

Either way, they ventured into the forest without looking back.

     

 


End file.
